Kenneth Skelton was the courageous Bishop of Matabeleland who endured the outrage of many white Rhodesians and their supporters in Britain by refusing to accept Ian Smith’s independent white-minority regime. To them Skelton was simply “Red Ken”, and this short, highly intelligent man with sparkling eyes and no small-talk was a turbulent priest they wanted rid of. Like the Queen’s High Commissioner, Sir Humphrey Gibbs, Skelton saw Ian Smith’s Rhodesia as a racist state giving no hope of political freedom to four million blacks. By speaking up, Skelton believed that he kept the Churches open to black Africans, including future leaders of the calibre of the Ugandan martyr Archbishop Luwum and the South African Archbishop and Nobel Prizewinner Desmond Tutu.
“If Mr Smith does not shoot you, I will,” was only one of the threatening phone calls he received. Some whites burnt their Bibles and sent the ashes to Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who strongly supported Skelton. The Archbishop himself, walking down a corridor in the House of Lords, discovered that peers need not be gentlemen when he was cursed with the phrase “you bloody bugger”. Lord Hailsham proposed that bishops should be elected for fixed terms; then “they would cease to make such asses of themselves”.
Many white church-going Christians in Rhodesia were convinced of the superiority of whites over blacks and feared any concessions. Lord Graham, for a time Minister of Defence in the Cabinet of Ian Smith, was a British Israelite convinced that Smith’s Rhodesia could lead the world back to piety and godly living.
Skelton had to face this Shangri-La philosophy. Any suggestion that Britain ought to defend black rights was ridiculed by saying that the bishop wished to amend the hymn so that it read:“Onward Christian soldiers, Shoot thy kith and kin.” This quiet, almost dapper bishop argued that “justice is more important than law and order — and can sometimes be incompatible with it”.
Kenneth John Fraser Skelton was born in 1918 and educated at Dulwich College and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He took a double first in classics and theology and was influenced by Sir Edwyn Hoskyns and Noel Davey. He was ordained in 1941 and served in Derbyshire parishes before joining Wells Theological College, where he provided traditional ballast to John Robinson’s radical fireworks. After serving incumbencies in Manchester and Liverpool he was startled to be invited to go to Rhodesia. He was consecrated in his diocesan cathedral at Bulawayo in July 1962.
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Gifted with unusual powers of rapidly absorbing information, he was astonished by the Rhodesian Hansard: “Majority rule is in fact the antithesis of democracy. We do not want four million squealing kids and their illiterate mothers coming in.” In fact many of the African teachers, pastors, farmers and teachers were of great maturity. He was determined that young blacks should see the mainstream Churches — Anglican, Free Church and Roman Catholics — open to them and not simply to Europeans.
It was hard going. To evade police bugging he would speak on the phone in Latin when talking to his colleague the Bishop of Mashonaland. The Rhodesian government attitude was summed up in 1970 on his return to Britain in a Bulawayo editorial, which spoke of “his impetuosity and abrasiveness where greater tact would have won more support”. Skelton wryly commented that the founder of Christianity had not been notably successful in dealing with pharisaism.
For the bishop and his wife, Phyllis, the first years in England were an anti- climax, his task being to reorganise parishes in Sunderland. After five years as assistant bishop of Durham he was appointed in 1975 to Lichfield, a large diocese with a paternalistic tradition whose former princely bishop had been nicknamed “Jumbo”. In contrast, Skelton was a moderniser, sharing authority, urging parishes to find out the facts and make up their own minds. Lay readers reached record numbers, the General Synod appointed another suffragan bishop and his diocesan synod addresses were outstanding. Some felt him formidably clever and he had the knack of dropping in on church members unexpectedly. They did not all agree with him, but if they disagreed they did so with regret and affection.
His support of remarriage in church after divorce was the basis of the “Lichfield report”, which led to nine polarised debates in the General Synod. Though agreement was insufficient to legislate, present Anglican practice reflects his views. He was also called upon to support the World Council of Churches’ grants to Africans struggling to create Zimbabwe, and to assess the future of the Overseas Bishoprics Fund.
In retirement in Sheffield he was warmly welcomed as assistant bishop and also as a skilled standby organist. His vicar was delighted to have a bishop on the pedals and told the congregation “Our Ken is at the organ”. He played a full part in the life of the city and diocese and maintained his diligent unostentatious support for his beloved Church of England. But on his mantelpiece was Durer’s Praying Hands inscribed on the back “From Rhodesian African Friends. Pray for Our Deliverance”. As the empire closed down, no overseas English bishop had worked with more intelligent integrity than Kenneth Skelton. His last words in Bulawayo on white minority rule and segregated education were not forgotten: “If our nation’s rulers pursue a policy which is at variance with our belief in God, we cannot but resist.” He was appointed CBE in 1972.
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He married, in 1945, Phyllis Emerton, who died last year. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.
The Right Rev Kenneth Skelton, CBE, Bishop of Matabeleland, 1962-70, and Bishop of Lichfield, 1975-84, was born on May 16, 1918. He died on July 30, 2003, aged 85.